Friday, March 15, 2024

A Little Foodie Fun, with Fire! Mole Colorado

It was another cold and rainy day, so I made a fire in my fireplace.  At this point, it is almost a reflex to want to cook with that fire, so today I decided to create a mole colorado, Oaxacan style.  (Pronounced "moh-lay".)

A mole is a sauce, and this particular one needed to be tomato-based.  My challenge was to create it without a specific recipe.  I wanted to make it using general guidelines for moles and many of the traditional ingredients as I had read about them.

The guidelines are:

  • Moist ingredients (tomatoes, onions, garlic) - char the exterior on a comal or dry skillet
  • Dry ingredients (chiles, spices, nuts, seeds) - toast on a dry skillet
  • Blend everything together with just enough water
  • Simmer until the flavors meld and the sauce thickens

Some of the ingredients I picked were not appropriate for charring or toasting, so I held those out until the blending step.  But I get ahead of myself.  

My Creation

1 large brown onion, unpeeled
4 Roma tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
3 New Mexico chiles
3 costeño chiles
1/4 cup white sesame seeds
1-3 inch long stick of cinnamon plus another 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 allspice berries (you might want more)
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 teaspoon salt
about 2 1/2 cups water

First I needed to char the tomatoes, onion, and garlic.  The onion was big, so I cut it in half and placed the pieces cut-side-down on the dry skillet.  The tomatoes went whole over hot coals.  The garlic cloves were also placed in a dry skillet.
Coals cool down and sometimes they do that faster than I anticipate, so the garlic and the tomatoes got moved around as needed to find the heat.  You can see in the picture above that the live fire was closest to the pan with the onions, so that is where the garlic and tomatoes ended up.

I wanted to do more than just char the onion halves on the cut side.  I wanted them to be pretty cooked once they were ready to leave the fire.  So after they cooked on the cut side, I turned them to cook on the skin sides.  In all, they were on the fire the longest and were soft almost all the way through.  They also got a nice char on the cut side.


I charred the garlic with their skins on until the skins split.  This had cooked the garlic to soft.  The chiles were charred in the dry skillet until they had turned mostly black and puffed up.

The big chiles are New Mexico, the small are costeño.  Note the garlic cloves.

The tomatoes didn't get much charring but they did get soft and the skin broke up.


I toasted the sesame seeds until they smelled nutty, which also made them more ivory than white in color.  Toasting the cinnamon stick didn't change its appearance much, but it smelled more spicy than usual.  The whole allspice berries also smelled a little fruity once toasted.

Use more allspice

Once everything was done with the fire, I moved to the kitchen.  I removed the peel from the onion and the garlic cloves.  I did not remove the stem ends from the tomatoes.  I pulled off the stems from the chiles and removed their seeds.  

All the ingredients went into the blender *in batches* with some water to get it all moving.  This included the chocolate (broken into pieces) and the raisins but not the ground cinnamon and salt.

The first batch needed one cup of water.  Once that was blended, I poured most of it into a kettle.  I left some behind to act as liquid for the next batch, which only needed 1/2 cup water to get it going.  The third and fourth batches didn't need more water at all when I left some of the previous batch with them.  Then I used about 1 cup water to rinse out the blender jar.

All batches went into the same kettle, then were stirred together.  This means it is not important what ingredients went into which batch -- as long as they were blended to smooth each time and added to the kettle.  By "smooth", I mean that there were no visible chunks, even though the mixture looked grainy.  The chiles became tiny, dark flakes in the liquid, so it wasn't perfectly smooth looking.  

This is smooth!

The kettle went onto the fire, where I put coals below it, a few around it, and it was near the live fire.  I stirred it often.  I also rotated the kettle so the hot side near the live fire was switched with the cooler side away from the fire.  I added more coals around the edges as needed.

It started steaming quickly.  Sometimes it bubbled and blurped on the hot side, reminding me to stir it more.  

See the blurp?

I tasted it occasionally.  Before cooking, the dominant flavor was raw tomato, bright and acidic.  I knew the mole had to cook at least until that raw tomato flavor was gone.  That took about 30 minutes.  Then the dominant flavor was onion (it was a very large onion), and I wanted to cook the sauce long enough to get that onion flavor blended with the others.  That took about another 30 minutes.

After 1 hour of cooking, I decided it needed more cinnamon, so I added 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (untoasted) and it needed salt, so I added 1/4 teaspoon.  I wish I had added more allspice, but I was reluctant just in case I over-seasoned it.

It cooked another 10 minutes when I declared it thick enough.  You can see by comparing the first kettle picture to the one below that the level reduced about an inch, mostly from steaming.


Notice, too, that the color darkened considerably.  That isn't from the lighting -- the uncooked sauce was red; the cooked sauce was brown.

The Verdict

I had some roasted pork tenderloin and some roasted turkey in my refrigerator, so I sliced them up and warmed them in the oven.  A few slices went onto each plate, some mole was spooned over the top, and was garnished with sesame seeds.  There were flour tortillas and a tossed green salad on the side.  And wine!
Pretty!
We liked the mole with both meats.  We couldn't really decide which one was better with it.  (This was not a problem!)  I particularly liked dunking the flour tortilla into the extra mole and eating it without any other meat or garnish.  I thought the flavor of the mole was emphasized this way.

That flavor was ... complex...  Not that this was unexpected, with all the different ingredients involved.  It is just challenging to describe.

My guest taster thought there was meat in it, so I would say it had an umami taste.  We both thought it was fruity, probably from the raisins.  It was bitter, but not in a bad way.  That could be from the charring, but also from the bittersweet chocolate.  My guest taster had wondered if there was chocolate in it, and was happy to learn there was.  I could taste the cinnamon but not the allspice.  I wanted more of both spices.

I could not taste the garlic, but I don't know if it needed any more.  I would say not.  

The chiles were there, adding a lot of flavor and only some heat.  I had been warned that costeños were hotter than what I was used to, and to use them with caution.  This was good advice!  While I didn't get a burn from the chiles, their heat was present.  Maybe I could have put in one or two more, but considering I am a chile newby, it was good that I didn't.

The sesame seeds, surprisingly, didn't get broken up much by the blender.  I was surprised at how many were still whole or nearly so after the mole was cooked.  This added a nice little sesame flavor blast while I was eating it.  

In summary, it was sweet, bitter, deep, rich, mildly spiced with a little chile heat.  As I said, it was complex.  We loved it.

The next day we heated up some of the pork roast, covered the slices with a fried egg, and spooned some mole over the top.  That, with some flour tortillas, was breakfast.  Excellent.

I don't know how my mole would compare to a "typical" mole colorado from Oaxaca.  I don't think it matters.  It was good and we wanted more.  I achieved success.

Friday, March 1, 2024

Ensalada de pepinos - Cucumber salad, a Pinedo recipe

It's time for another Pinedo recipe!  (See the side panel for the tag "Pinedo" to see them all.)

My garden is producing chervil, an herb that tastes like black licorice.  I wanted to try one of her recipes that uses it.  Today I was in the mood for a salad, so on page 100 I found:


My Translation



I suspect that every culture that eats cucumbers has a version of cucumber salad involving vinegar -- they are a natural pairing.  

Aside from the use of chervil, this recipe is interesting because of the process she calls "deflamming" (desflamar).  This website, The Importance of Desflamar in Mexican Cooking, explains that soaking chiles in various liquids (milk or sugar water, for example) is useful to reduce the heat of the chiles in order to let the "underlying flavors shine."

In this recipe, the cucumbers and onions are deflammed; the cucumbers by soaking them in fresh water and the onions by soaking them in cold water with lemon juice.  Why do this at all?  

Cucumbers can be bitter.  A bitter-tasting chemical called cucurbitacin can form, mostly in the skin or just below it and at the ends, all because of the growing conditions - too dry or poor soil can contribute to this.  Peeling the cucumbers helps remove that, and soaking them in water may also help.  My cucumbers were not bitter to begin with, and I could not taste a difference after deflamming them.

Deflamming the onions helps reduce the strong taste that a raw onion has.  In this recipe, I soaked the sliced onions for 2 hours in water, a little crushed ice, and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.  I saved a few slices out separately so I could taste the difference between them, and it was quite distinct.  The raw onion's flavor was sharp and potent, whereas the deflammed onion's flavor was mellow and mild.  I could not taste the lemon, but the process turned the onions with bite into ones that were pleasant to nibble.

My Redaction 

4 cucumbers, about 2 pounds
5 ounces white onion, peeled and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tomato, quartered and sliced (1 more would be fine)
1 large jalapeño chile, seeded and deveined, quartered and sliced
2 tablespoons chervil, finely minced
(water cress if you can find it; I couldn't)
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground pepper to taste
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon fresh Italian oregano, finely minced


Peel and then slice cucumbers into rounds just less than 1/4 inch thick.  Soak in fresh water for 2 hours.  Peel and thinly slice the onion.  Soak in a mixture of water, a few ice cubes, and lemon juice for 2 hours.
Deflamming the cukes
In the meantime, prepare the tomato(es), chile, and chervil, and place in a large bowl.

Use a bigger bowl than this for mixing.
Drain the cucumbers and onions, then add to the tomato mixture.  Drizzle the oil over everything.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Mix well.
I added about this much pepper.

If the salad is not to be served right away, cover it and put it into the refrigerator.  Just before serving, mix it again, then add the vinegar and oregano.  Mix well.  A little piece of chervil makes a nice garnish.
Garnished with some chervil

The Verdict

My guest tasters and I all agreed that this was a very good salad.  The flavors were interesting:  the chile was a surprise to them but it didn't add fire, just its distinctive jalapeño taste.  We agreed the amount was just right (even the chile lover in the group), although a little chile heat would have been acceptable.  The onions were delightful because they didn't have that raw onion bite.  

We all wanted more tomatoes in the salad.  I would increase it to two for the same amount of cucumbers.  We thought the amount of salt and pepper was just right.

The chervil was a subtle support flavor, which was good because not everyone likes the taste of black licorice.  It was not something you could single out without focusing on it, and when I did focus on it, I liked the level of licorice flavor it added.  I did not focus on the oregano taste, so I feel it was a good background flavor, adding complexity without calling attention to itself.

The flavors were balanced, and the vinegar and oil mix was refreshing.  It was pretty to look at.  Success!

I enjoyed the leftovers the next day, so if you want to make this salad ahead of time and allow the ingredients to marinate in the oil-and-vinegar dressing, please do.  Miss Pinedo probably had limited refrigeration capabilities, so she might not have considered making this ahead of time.  Just mix it well before serving.


Thursday, February 15, 2024

Cardamom-Scented Whipped Sweet Potatoes

One day I read an article about Edna Lewis, a woman considered to be the "Grande Dame" of Southern cooking.  To see how she has inspired cooks and brought national attention to the joys of this food genre, click here to read an article by the Smithsonian magazine.  She was impressive, talented, classy, and gracious.  I wanted to know more about her cooking.  To that end, I was given all four of her cookbooks, which I have read in the order of publication.  

There are so many recipes I want to try.  I was fixing a dinner for a guest taster and decided that sweet potatoes would be a good choice to go with the meal.  I turned to The Gift of Southern Cooking, the last of her series, that was written with her dear friend, Scott Peacock.

ISBN 0-375-40035-4

On page 163 is the recipe for Cardamom-Scented Whipped Sweet Potatoes.  Now keep in mind that I love sweet potatoes and I love cardamom, so putting the two together just made the recipe even more tempting.

Cardamom-Scented Whipped Sweet Potatoes

6 medium-sized sweet potatoes (about 2 1/2 pounds)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/3 - 1 cup heavy cream, heated

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

salt to taste

Let the butter come to room temperature while the potatoes are cooking.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Put the sweet potatoes on a foil-, parchment-, or Silpat-lined baking sheet, and bake in the preheated oven for about 1 1/2 hours, until very soft and tender.  Remove from the oven and cool slightly.  Peel the warm potatoes, and put them in the bowl of an electric mixer.  Beat the potatoes until mashed, and add the butter, 1/3 cup of the heavy cream, cardamom, nutmeg, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.  Whip until smooth and creamy - you may have to add considerably more cream.  Taste carefully for seasoning, and add more salt if needed.  Serve hot.

My Notes

Medium-sized sweet potatoes were not an option at my local store, so I used two large that weighed about 2 1/2 pounds total.  I did not line my baking sheet.  The outcome was sticky goo that leaked out of the sweet potatoes while cooking.

No worries about the puddles of goo you see here.

However, this is not a problem for me.  I've baked sweet potatoes so many times that I know I just need to soak the pan in water, and the goo will dissolve.  

They were still very hot when I peeled them.  I use a fork and a small knife to do this:  the fork acts like my fingers to help pull the peel away from the hot insides.  The knife breaks the skin and cuts the interior up into chunks.

Peeled and chunked but no burned fingers.

Miss Lewis and Mr. Peacock note that sweet potatoes are fibrous and recommend putting them through a food mill if you want "perfectly smooth" whipped potatoes.  I did not do this.  I noticed that some fibers wrapped themselves around the mixer's beater, so I pulled them from the bowl and threw them away.  

Beaten until mashed

I cut the butter into chunks before adding it to the whipped potatoes.  I forgot to warm the cream, but the potatoes were so hot (steaming vigorously when being whipped) that it didn't seem to be a problem.  I used just 1/3 cup cream.  My butter was salted, so I used 1/4 teaspoon salt instead of 1/2 teaspoon.

Whipped until smooth

After the second whipping, I tasted it and deemed it "just right."  It was smooth enough, and the salt was enhancing the sweet without being salty.  The mixture went into a serving bowl, and I used a spoon to smooth and swirl the surface.

Ready to serve

The Verdict

It was lovely.  The sweet potatoes were not too sweet but just enough so to tickle my taste buds.  They were creamy and felt good on the tongue.  The cardamom was more of a sensation in my nose than a taste, which I loved.  I think the nutmeg was a background flavor, as it didn't come through as "nutmeg" but when I focused on it, I could taste it.  It was a good support for the cardamom.

My guest tasters thought what they saw was regular whipped potatoes and were surprised that they were sweet potatoes.  I had purchased the lighter-colored variety instead of the bold, orange type.  They agreed on my assessment of the flavors, describing the result as "fantastic" and "really good."  They particularly liked how creamy it was.

Success!  

I was not surprised that it was good, and appreciated that it was fantastic.  I served it with roasted turkey, stuffing, and a cucumber salad.  And white wine!  It was a good dinner.

Extra:  Reheating the leftovers seemed to taste even better.  

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Bath or Bitumen - a Pinedo recipe

I finally had a batch of roscas that I wanted to decorate like it was for Rosca de Reyes.  Not a big ring as is traditional, but a batch of 16 individual rolls or buns.  Click here to see that post.

I wanted to try Miss Pinedo's recipe of Bath or Bitumen -- a sugar and egg white icing.  She offers three recipes on pages 27-8.



My Translation



I was, at first, confused by the word "betum", but then I realized it was probably meant to be "bitún", which translates to "bitumen".  That is a glaze or icing that will bathe the biscuits, which is what these recipes describe.  A "pucha" is a sweet bread from Oaxaca.

I chose to use the third recipe, "Ditto", because I could make it with only one egg white.  I felt that would be plenty of icing.  I recognize it as a version of Royal Icing, with the exception of using granulated sugar and not powdered sugar.  It is possible Miss Pinedo intended the reader to use powdered sugar, but since she did not specify it, I used regular granulated sugar.

My Redaction

1 egg white
1 pound sugar
the juice from 1/2 of a lemon


Beat the egg white until stiff, then add in the sugar gradually while still beating.  If (when!) the mixture starts seeming dry because there is so much sugar, add the lemon juice.  I did about half and then waited to see if it needed more later.  It did.

Starting to look dry

Done.  Moist, not dry.

The Verdict

Once the bitumen was done, I put some into a decorator bag while trying out various tips, just for fun.
I expected to decorate a few roscas with dried fruit, nuts, and candied pineapple, but not very many.  So I just played with the bitumen.

The first try.  The icing stuck well.

Play time!



I tasted just the bitumen.  It was sweet but gritty because of the sugar crystals.  I could taste the lemon, and it was an excellent flavor in the mix.  I had no trouble using the various tips, so the bitumen flowed out of them nicely.

The decorations are raisins, dried cranberries, dried apricots (sliced), and glacéed pineapple that I made by simmering chunks of canned pineapple in a syrup made of pineapple juice and some sugar until the chunks were translucent.  

After the roscas were decorated, they dried on the counter for a few hours.  The bitumen firmed and dried, and then I tasted a rosca.

The bitumen was a good addition to the rosca.  It made it a sweet bread, more like a dessert than a dinner roll.  The bitumen was still gritty, but that was not a textural problem.   I could have tried her technique in the first recipe, which required dissolving the sugar into the egg whites and a little water before beating the mix.

One problem I did have was that the bitumen didn't stick to the bread much after it dried.  So taking a bite through the icing and the bread meant that most of the icing fell off.  Perhaps it would have stuck better if I had smeared it on (using a feather or not!) instead of setting it on with the decorating tip.  Oh well, that made it fun to eat -- picking up the pieces of icing with my fingers as I was taking a bite of the bread.  It felt like I was a kid again.

Also, the leftover icing that went into the refrigerator softened even more, almost to the point of being fluffy.  I spread it on some cookies -- thickly! -- which was also very tasty.  The roscas that were stored in a covered container also had their bitumen soften, which was fine as it didn't fall off any more.  It was like having a thin, lemony sprinkling of sugar on top.  

Success!  

This has been an adventure, but I'm so glad it ended with a successful food item.  I would use the dough again (with the addition of the orange) to make a true ring shape for Roscas de Reyes, and I would try this bitumen recipe with powdered sugar for the decoration.  

It was fun to experience what Miss Pinedo might have done 120 years ago!


Saturday, February 3, 2024

Another Rosca -- a Pinedo recipe

Miss Pinedo's recipe for Orange Roscas did not work for me -- I failed at making a tasty, fluffy bread.  Click here to see that post.

There were a variety of reasons I suspect made it fail.  I wanted to make roscas that worked, so I tried her third recipe under the Roscas section, titled "Other."  (Page 234)


My Translation


My Redaction & Notes

For the dough:
2 cups of yeast water (see note below)
4 well-beaten eggs
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 cup scalded milk (heated to about 180 degrees F then cooled to room temperature)
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 pounds bread flour, plus extra to use while shaping the dough

For the "smear":
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons sugar

And the yeast water
To make the yeast water, mix 2 cups of warm water with 1/2 cup flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 2 teaspoons dried yeast.  Let it proof for 1 hour in a warm location.  Stir well before adding to the dough.

Mix all dough ingredients other than the flour together in a big bowl.  Add flour one pound at a time, mixing well, then the last 1/2 pound (or so) to get a dough that is soft and sticky.  (Note that I chose bread flour this time.)

Knead well.  I used a mixer with a kneading hook and worked the dough until it was not as sticky and was holding together well.  It was still "loose" and sticky, just not as much as it was before I kneaded it.

Grease your hands with butter and use a knife or scissors to cut off chunks of dough.  From the wording in Miss Pinedo's recipe, I decided these should be individual rolls instead of a large ring.  Most of the balls of dough weighed about 5 ounces; this made 18 rolls (see "The Verdict" below).  Shape them and place them on greased baking sheets.

Let the rolls rise for about 30 to 45 minutes or until doubled.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. while they are rising.  Mix the sugar and milk well to make the smear, then let stand while the rolls rise.

When the rolls are ready, brush each gently with the smear mixture.

Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the rolls sound hollow when tapped.  At the 10 minute mark, I switched the pans top-to-bottom to help them brown evenly.

Remove from oven, place rolls on racks to cool.

The dough is nearly ready for kneading.

About 4 ounces by weight each

Five ounces by weight each

Risen and smeared 1

Risen and smeared 2

I checked them at 15 minutes by pulling the pans out of the oven then quickly taking one rosca and cutting it down the middle.  The center looked a little moist, so I decided to put the pans back in for another 5 minutes, making it 20 minutes total.

Still a tiny bit moist in the middle.
Here they are at the 20 minute mark.  Beautiful!


No cracks!


The Verdict

I cut a rosca in half and was very happy to see the delicate crumb, the good-sized and well-distributed holes, and how the center's moisture looked just right.  The roll was light, fluffy, and sprang back when lightly pressed.  The crust was even and a golden brown.

Perfectly baked.  I am astonished.

I tasted it and found it to be good.  If anything, it could have had more salt, however my guest taster (who is a salt lover) thought it was just right.  I did wish for the orange flavoring of the previous rosca; perhaps I will add orange juice and zest to this recipe if I do it again.  

One guest taster said it reminded her of brioche, and I think that assessment is spot on.  All the guest tasters enjoyed the flavor of the bread as it was, without butter or any other addition.

Success!  Now I am more convinced that a kettle cup (una taza caldera) is a pint, or 16 ounces in volume.  I've been trying to figure that out for months.  

It is not a sweet bread.  There is no sugar in the dough other than what I included in the yeast water.  Overall, I would call it a very good dinner roll, and it is also good for a sandwich.  With that in mind, I think the 5 ounce weight of dough made dinner rolls that were too big.  Three or four ounces would have been better so as not to overwhelm the eater with so much bread.  However, we felt the 5 ounce size would be good for a hamburger bun.  

I still want it to be iced and decorated, just like a Rosca de Reyes, so I decided to give that a try with a Pinedo recipe for the icing.  Come back tomorrow for that post.

Friday, February 2, 2024

Roscas de Naranjas -- a Pinedo recipe

At Christmas, I was reminded of a Mexican tradition, Día de Los Reyes; in English it is the Three Kings Day or Epiphany.  In my home, it is called Twelfth Night.

In Mexico, it often celebrated by eating a Rosca de Reyes, a King Cake.  This is a sweet bread shaped in a ring and decorated with dried and candied fruit, icing, and sometimes nuts.  

In the Pinedo cookbook on pages 233-4, she has a section labeled as "Roscas" and gives three variations for them.  None are labeled as specifically for de Reyes, and none of the recipes direct us to decorate the bread.  

I wanted to try the first recipe she listed, "Roscas de naranja", for several reasons.  First, the dough is flavored with oranges, while the others are not.  Next, it called for fifteen (15!!!) eggs.  Finally, it contains tequesquite, and I wanted to try it as a leavening agent.  Click here for the previous post with more information on tequesquite.


My Translation


Notice that she specifies using yeast as well as the tequesquite, and that the yeast is not really acting as a leavening agent.  I'm assuming it does a little and that it also adds flavor along with liquid.

I wasn't going to just toss in some dried yeast in powdered form.  Throughout the book, Miss Pinedo appears to be working with yeast in liquid form.  On page 149, she gives directions on how to make a liquid yeast in a crock to be available daily for bread making.  I decided to make a liquid yeast that was proofed before using in the dough.  

I took 1 teaspoon of dried bread yeast and mixed it into 2 cups of warm water, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1/2 cup flour.  I left it to proof in a warm location for about 2 hours.  I stirred it well before using it in the dough.
Proofed and ready to go

My Redaction

15 eggs
the juice of 2 small oranges (1/4 cup) and the zest of one
1 cup butter, melted
1/2 pound sugar
1 1/2 cups proofed yeast 
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup settled tequesquite water
5 1/2 pounds of all purpose flour, with some extra to dust the counter while kneading


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Put eggs, juice, zest, sugar, salt, and tequesquite water into a large bowl or pan.  (I used a 6 quart kettle.)

Mix well.  Add one pound of flour.  Mix well.

Add the butter, stirring while pouring it in so it does not scramble the eggs.  Add the rest of the flour (I added it one pound at a time, mixing each batch in as I went.) and mix well to form a soft, sticky dough.

Put it onto a floured surface and knead until it forms a body that sticks to itself more than your hands, but still is somewhat sticky.

It is ready to shape and bake. 

Nearly enough flour (5 pounds here)

The ball of dough after kneading

My Notes

I wasn't sure what the right temperature was for baking this.  Modern rosca recipes suggest 400 degrees F., so I first set my oven to that.  I took a small piece of dough for a test bake.  I left it in for 13 minutes; that is when it developed a little browning on the outside.

About the size of the small orange

Baked after 13 minutes

Interior needed more time, exterior more browning

The interior looked very moist and I felt it needed more baking time.  The outside should have been browner.  So I lowered the temperature to 375 degrees F for my next test batch.

I took half of the remaining dough and shaped it into a ball.  Once it was on the baking sheet, I poked a hole in the middle with my fingers and started pulling it into a ring shape.



My goal was to get the thickness of the dough reasonably the same all around to help it bake evenly.  The dough had the tendency to pull back to a smaller ring than what I pulled it to.  I got it as best as I could and put it into the oven for 35 minutes.

It was nicely browned and sounded hollow when tapped.  I did not like the cracking on top, which I attribute to how I shaped the ball -- I didn't tuck the dough to make a smooth surface when I prepared to put it on the baking sheet.


I let it cool and then sliced it.  The interior looked damp, almost like it wasn't baked enough, although it had formed a small crumb and there were some bubbles.  The crust was fine; crispy and lightly brown.  The orange flavor came through without being too much.  It might have been better with more salt.  It is not a sweet bread, but considering how much sugar goes on it (icing and/or powdered sugar), I think that is acceptable.  


I wondered if the interior was that moist-looking because of 15 egg yolks and 1 cup of butter.  That seems like a lot of fat for bread.  

I believe the orange juice serves two purposes.  It adds flavor, but probably not as much flavor as the zest, which seemed to be the orange flavor I tasted.  But it is an acid, and I think it would react with the alkaline in the tequesquite water to make bubbles.  Perhaps I needed more tequesquite water or more orange juice to make the bread better.

The other half of the dough was also shaped into a ring.  This time I turned the dough to form a smooth top as I was making the ball.  Then I formed the ring and baked it a 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.


The top didn't crack, so I think I was right about that.  It seemed puffier, too.

But it, too, was disappointing.  The interior was a little more cooked-looking than the previous batch and it had more bubbles.  But it was still dense.  Don't get me wrong; the flavor was good as the orange came through well.  It just didn't seem like bread, or at least not the lighter, fluffy bread I was expecting.


I can't really call this a success.  I will label it as a failure.  We still saved it, though, as it wasn't so bad that I wanted to throw it out.  I sliced it into individual serving pieces and froze most of it.  It was fine to eat when heated or toasted, so I will have a sturdy bread to serve with a soup or stew.  It might do well in a bread pudding some day, too.

So where did it all go wrong?  I don't know for sure, but my sense tells me I didn't have enough tequesquite water (or strong enough water) to make all that dough rise.  I also think I could have kneaded it more.  Or I could have ignored the directions to not let it ferment and let the second batch rise.  And did it really need all those eggs?  One aspect I neglected to consider is that the eggs of yesteryear may have been a lot smaller, so I did not need that many eggs of the large size.  Maybe five would have been better.  That is just a guess.

I was not deterred.  I decided to try another of Miss Pinedo's rosca recipes.  Check back for tomorrow's post to see the results.